And Eve handed him the apple with a smile
by PolarisWhatever
Summary: OS. In another story, she stays. About little boys and little girls, Peter, Hook and Wendy, and the endless struggle between the three parts of a triptych that isn't really one. "I chose her. And you're still the one she prefers, my boy."


Who never thought Peter Pan was the most tragic story ever written for children? Okay, maybe a lot of people. But not me. Everytime I think about it makes me horribly depressed. So I had to write something equally depressing to make other people feel as miserable as me. Caring is sharing.

Disclaimer: All I have is a mildly cannibalistic rabbit. Actually no, even that small menace isn't mine, though it's currently the center of my life.

Warnings: Mentions of non-graphic bedroom activity. I mean sex. Defiling kiddy stories! Gasp!

...enjoy? (feeback! feedback!)

XXX

_Say, what would you do for me?_

In another story, she stays. She stays because they both want her to, so there aren't any reasons to make themselves unhappy, and the background of the world and All The Bigger Matters fade in a cloud of fairy dust and lullabies. They live in their quiet and colourful world, eating berries and drinking stream water, catching pearls at the bottom of the ocean and riding rainbows until their small bellies are full and their throats ache of laughing too much. She's his lady and he's her boy, mother, sister, friend, sweetheart and all those pretty little roles she slips into, in a performance for his eyes only, but _her_ eyes are much deeper than they should, and if you looked deep enough, little one, you'd see yourself falling.

And he, well, he is Peter, always the same old thing, the same bright new thing and he never changes, wasn't that the point anyway? He doesn't ask her to stay, but it's the choice that's shackling her to his side all the worse, confident, over-confident little boy. She might make it one day, that choice, and then you'll learn that pride and ignorance only make you plummet faster to the ground. For now, try to be thankful that she's letting you fly. But of course, Peter never thanks anyone, Peter never bows, he's Peter after all, and that's why she loves him, at least for now. Tomorrow's another story. The whole thing with Peter is that there's no tomorrow to think about.

But well, he's happy, and she is too, really, and she allows herself to believe for a while that they have the same understanding of forever, and ever and ever, and it works for some time, but not long. It's the thing about girls and boys, you know, they just don't reach, the sense of pacing is all wrong, and when she tries to grab his hand, she realizes that she's already moved past him without noticing, long long ahead, and she can only stare back in regret and despair and maybe a little expectation, though she knows it won't work. Not with him, not like that. But Wendy's a nice, kind, loyal girl, she said she loved him that way and she _understands_, well actually she doesn't, not really, but she pretends to and that's all he cares about. She won't betray him, never, because he's the only one she sees, and he's content with the knowledge that it'll always be that way, a world made of two people, Wendy and Peter, Peter and Wendy, no matter what kind of lies are holding up the sun in the sky. So she bottles it up and puts it off as long as she can, but you've got to understand, sweetie, that she's not perfect and nor are you, so it's got to happen sometimes.

The first time Wendy kisses him again - kisses him for real, no thimble this time, no excuse - it tastes like betrayal, and he can hear the first stone of their castle falling to the ground.

_I'd die. I'd kill. I'd become someone else._

I don't want this, Peter says. Then, Wendy smiles, not hiding the bitterness very well, but it doesn't matter because he wouldn't see it anyway, and says, I'm sorry. I don't want it either. It'll never happen again. And it doesn't, not really, not like that. He still rides the rainbow and gets drunk on the blue of the sky, and she follows him with a lenient smile, bowing to pass through thresholds that are getting too low, always always smiling because it's not true, she minds, but she can bear it (but can _you_, darling?). Because he's him and she's her and that's how not-so-little girls are, they bear it with a smile, and they wait endlessly for something that looks like it'll never come at all. He, in turn, completely fails to notice the changes in her, not only in the inside, because he would be far too dense for that at any rate, but on the outside as well, and how her body twists and turns until it looks like someone put it there to make him trip. He doesn't. Not Peter Pan.

There is the pitter-patter of her feet on the fallen leaves, though, at night, when they both should be sleeping but neither of them are, getting farther away from the tree house, into the wild. Funny how it always seem to be autumn these days. He sees her darkening shape disappear into the night, going someplace that he doesn't know, and you have to see, it's perfectly genuine, he's really not letting himself realize. But he can't ignore the outline of the ship when it appears one day in the horizon, that familiar, terrible ship, and he can almost hear the ominous tic-tac sound. It's supposed to be good for him, that noise, isn't it, so why is it that every time he thinks about it the night seems to get more chilly? So he says, Wendy Darling, be careful, the pirates are back, and they're probably out to get you and me, but mostly me, and then you'll be all alone and scared and we wouldn't want that to happen. We need to hide so they won't find us, and if they'll do we'll fight, but we won't let them win, never.

And she says yes, Peter, because that's what she always says. But her face is flushed and her lips are darker, like they've just been kissed. The stupid little bird wouldn't sing the same song if he knew that the battle's been fought for a long time already, but then it's his choice, he's the dense one, and he's supposed to be the happy one too, would be if reality wasn't so good at catching up these days. It's about to crash, it's all about to crash hard right on his head, everybody knows that, but he's forgot how to run away, or maybe the world just doesn't let him anymore, and the worst betrayal's coming from inside. It'd be terrible if it wasn't so terribly trivial.

_I'd let someone else become me. _

In another story, he doesn't die, standing in the sunset like a scarecrow, bestial and scary and everything he's supposed to be, waiting for things to come so he can tangle them up. The clock's ticking, and he's starting to get afraid, because that's the time for him to do so, but time he also still has, so let's make the most of it. The crocodile chases Hook and Hook chases Peter and Wendy's lost somewhere in that mess, I don't know, maybe she's chasing the crocodile, but anyway they're going on and on as they should be. He sits on the deck of his tall, fiery ship and looks in the distance, all refined and brutish with his glass of red wine and the stupid feather in his hat, and he plots, because well, that's what villains are good at, and there's the annoying brat to get rid off someway, so he can finally escape his cardboard moustache and that stupid, childish hook.

And then there's her. He's sitting still, rocking gently over the waves in that crack between dusk and dawn, all silence and expectation when she walks through, bare-feet, with her simple charms and her complicated appeals. She's still young, but she's getting there, getting the eyes that ensnare and the lips that beckon, the arms that draw and the hips that pull, and all those things that girls and women possess even without their knowledge. The sheer power of it, it's to ponder, really, how even when they're not beautiful a seemingly insignificant move, a shift in the light can still bring the little sphere in your throat bobbing down. And she is beautiful, this one. How could a bad, bad man like him resist her? The story's been written, the cards have been dealt, nature has spoken: time for the show to begin. Dear, the kid is never going to live it down.

So he sets his nets and pulls her in, because he is not a patient man, not yet. And as she came looking for that exact thing, she falls willingly, though with no little amount of regret, her white arms spreading like a dove, the image of that lovely, lovely boy who just can't suffice anymore lingering behind her closed eyelids. You'll be a pirate, darling, the sirens sing, there will be blood and greatness and much excitement, not of the fairies and sweet rainbows kind, but the kind that pumps loud in your vein when you start to need more, more depth, more complication, more passion. More everything.

_But, you know, I wouldn't be doing it for you. Not really. _

They tumble down together and he holds her close, closer than she's never been held, clutching her hard until she can't breathe, a hand around the column of her throat and the other leaving marks on the skin of her hip. Her eyes are wide open while his are closed, lost in the scent of her, the feeling of her hair against his lips, of the more intimate parts of her under his fingers while he unearths treasures that weren't buried in the first place. He pants like a dog and growls like a wolf and she watches him coming undone with fascination and a little disgust, barely registering the blood that spills out of her and will never come back, but it's okay, because she asked for it in the first place. Girls don't become women thanks to men, and like all real women, Wendy knows that sparkling fantasies and soft nights in satin sheets aren't all they're cracked up to be. He's stumbling a little, that poor man, and she can see a mischievous pout surrounded by fairy dust when she closes her eyes, and that's what makes it alright.

Somehow it happens over and over again, and he grabs what he wants with greedy hands and she starts to see stars just a little, along the way. And in the dead of the night, as he tries to quench his thirst by swallowing her whole, she softly calls "Peter!" in a beautiful, breathless voice, and it would sadden him immensely if it didn't anger him so much.

_I'd be doing it all for me because I want I want I want..._

"You monster!" The boy screams with rage, soaked by the rain that conveniently started to fall, looking like a tiny wet animal on the shore, completely ridiculous with his fury. "You've tainted her! You make her dirty by looking at her."

"Have you ever considered that maybe she wanted to be tainted?" The man laughs, bitter but satisfied. "Could you make her the woman she needs to be? I think not, little boy, I highly doubt so."

"She didn't really need to change." He whispers, almost frantic, trying to convince himself. "We could have stayed that way forever. Together. We were happy."

"But you were the one that didn't really want to, weren't you? Of the two of you. It was you that wanted the change the most. Wasn't it?"

"Why do you ask so many questions?" Peter pleads brokenly, staring at the white girl standing between the boat and shore, though she is the last thing he wants to see.

Hook smiles with the grace of a man who knows many things, and finds that it would be a great indiscretion to disclose them. Somewhere deep down in the sea, the crocodile ticks, and they both know they cannot bring answers to each other, because that would just be an one-sided reflexion.

"You're ugly!" The boy cries. "You're cruel! You just destroy everything! Monster, monster, monster!"

"And who, pray tell, made me that way, my little boy?" He says sardonically, glancing down at his own flaws and everything he left back, the crude glistening of the hook contrasting sharply with smooth, rosy skin. A hint of nostalgia creeps in his rough voice and he adds, softly, very softly, like a curse, which it is: "I chose her. And you're still the one she prefers, my boy."

Their eyes meet through the falling droplets, similar and reflecting endlessly like mirrors hung on opposite walls, creating doubles and dozens and millions of Peters and Hooks staring at each other in the shore in the night until there's only one figure standing, look at your nightmare in the eye, my boy, look at yourself. There's only one Wendy, in mind and body, and well, maybe the choice wasn't as hard for her, it's the thing with girls and boys that aren't so little anymore, you know, their way of seeing and feeling becomes all different. To tell the truth, she really had no choice at all since the very beginning, just as the clock keeps ticking and the rain doesn't flow upward, and yes, my boy, she's the one who took the apple and put all those thoughts in your mind, but they really don't realize, those cunning little fairies, and to be honest, it's still _your_ mind, you know?

_I want you to be mine, and it's as simple as that._

In another story, she doesn't leave because there's nowhere to escape, and he doesn't die because time stops for no one, even little boys dressed in green with stars in their eyes and a head full of fairy dust.

See, she might have been the temptation, but who's the one who bit into it, in the end?

_Nobody can escape the ticking clock._

_Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick..._


End file.
